Intel Floats Cloud Computing On A ChipIntel Floats Cloud Computing On A Chip

information readers were the first to learn about Intel's efforts to pack a data center onto a single chip, via my recent interview with Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner. (See Intel CTO Envisions On-Chip Data Centers.) Now, the chip behemoth has taken things one step further, formally announcing its single-chip cloud research project.The official squib from Intel is that: "Researchers from Intel Labs demonstrated an experimental, 48-core processor. . .Intel Labs has nicknamed this test chip a 'single-chip cloud computer' because it resembles the organization of datacenters used to create a 'cloud' of computing resources over the Internet." Now, this is fine news, but it's nothing to get all aTwitter about, in terms of thinking that we're going to see single-chip cloud machines all over the place tomorrow. Remember, this is a research project. Also, one should note that this is simply the latest step in Intel's ongoing Tera-scale effort, wherein the company previously demonstrated an 80-core prototype processor. You could say that Intel has enough neat stuff in its labs that it can simply roll out something anytime it wants and say, "Hey, here's something nifty, and it means such-and-such is coming." (In this case, you'd replace "such-and-such" with "cloud on a chip.") Which is not to say there's not some reality behind Intel's astute publicity engine. One can assess the feasibility of cloud on a chip via the realization that it's on a continuum with what we've got today -- namely, cloud on highly virtualized servers. (The point here is that highly virtualized server present thousands of physical and logical cores within a single container, so you could say that putting something analogous onto one chip is simply a packaging issue.) As well, Intel's "single chip cloud computer" can be seen as an intellectual exercise, which rolls up a lot of ongoing research in the broader bucket of data centers on a chip. (Cloud is the sexier word du jour, so it makes for a better press release.) Here's some salient perspective on that data center on a chip research, from my aforementioned recent interview with Rattner:

There's more here. My final thought on Intel's single-chip cloud computer is that the announcement Intel made is less about letting you know you're going to be getting cloud chips real soon and more about generating buzz for upcoming product. We see this in the press release line: "Intel will integrate key features in a new line of Core-branded chips early next year and introduce six- and eight-core processors later in 2010." Read more about the cloud chip from the horse's mouth, here.

See also our news story, Intel Demos 48-Core CPU.

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Alex Wolfe is editor-in-chief of information.com.

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